Canmake Lip Concealer Swatches

So these swatches are a little old, but hey, better late than never right? One of Canmake's items sold (not sure if it's still current stock, but I'm sure you can find it online via eBay and such) are their Lip Concealers. The idea is that if you want an all-out nude lip, or need to blank out your lip for artistic makeup, then you can use these Lip Concealers.

Canmake Lip Concealer Swatches

There are only two shades, so this is a short post.

01 White Pink is a pale beige that has some pink in it. A pale, cool-toned beige. A concealer shade, really.
02 Nude Beige is a tan beige, also with pink. Also a concealer shade.

As far as I can tell, the main benefit of using a specialized Lip Concealer over a typical concealer meant for face is the taste. These don't have any taste, whereas using a real concealer would taste really nasty. Although these are lip concealers, I'm sure there will be those who are game enough to use them as actual lip colours.

Canmake Candy Wrap Lip Swatches/Review: Candy Lips!

Ooh look, a lipgloss that looks cute, comes in a range of colours, and performs well! Of course, it's none other than Canmake, a Japanese drugstore brand that's got the kawaii image down pat. Everything in their line is packaged in the most cutesy, girly way you can imagine. And while I tend to squeal over cute packaging, I've got to admit, Canmake's latest offering, the Candy Wrap Lip range of lipglosses, also has quality to boot.

I absolutely love these little guys. Just look at how cute the packaging is! While I know the name Candy Wrap Lip may sound a bit odd to a westernized audience, I kind of get the image - shiny, sweet, and in candy colours, and I quite like it! Very evocative of candy lips. The Candy Wrap Lip has four colours, ranging from your typical pale pink to a jelly-like red. Don't they just look so delicious and candy-like?



L - R: 01 Sugar Love, 02 Navel Orange, 03 Peach Shower, 04 Lady Strawberry

The glosses come packaged in a plastic tube, with a doe-foot wand applicator. That's not anything particularly unusual, but doe-foot just happens to be my favourite type of gloss applicator.



Here are swatches of the Candy Wrap Lip range. As you can see from the swatches below, all the lipglosses have this jelly-like, transluscent finish that's very shiny. Just like candy!



01 Sugar Love is a pale, pastel neutral pink.
02 Navel Orange is a pale orange with a hint of pink.
03 Peach Shower is a peach-coral shade that isn't actually very peach or orange.
04 Lady Strawberry is a juicy sheer red.

And of course, I know you're dying to see how the Candy Wrap Lip glosses look on the lips, so here you go!

First, we have 01 Sugar Love. On my lips, it registers as a shiny pale pink nude. Very useful if you like shiny nude lips - it's a good nude in that it tones down your lip colour, but because it's transluscent, some of your natural lip colour still shows through, avoiding that dreaded "corpse nude lips" look.



Next is 02 Navel Orange. Navel Orange - I have no idea what that name is supposed to mean, but the colour is pretty lovely nonetheless. Although I didn't think I would like it, because it seemed quite orange in the tube, it actually registers as more of a very pale caramel nude on me, quite wearable and quite pleasant to look at. Also has that transluscent, squishy, shiny finish.



03 Peach Shower isn't as peach as the name makes it sound - in fact, to my eye, it's more of a pale coral-pink than anything else, both in the tube, as well as in swatches, both on my arm as well as on my lip. It's a pale colour, but isn't exactly a nude shade - it has a tinge more colour than that.



Last of the lot, we have 04 Lady Strawberry. Now, you know I love a sheer, juicy, succulent looking red lipgloss, so you'll know that this shade is definitely right up my alley. In fact, Lady Strawberry is probably my favourite of the bunch, because it really has that juicy, candy look and feel to it. I like it - it can be sheered on for a very wearable red lip, or you could layer it a little for slightly more colour. It's still pretty sheer, though, so you don't have to worry about looking like you're wearing a screaming red lip.



All in all, I quite like these, and I feel that they really do feel, smell, and look like candy. I also like the selection of colours, and feel that they fit in with the candy theme very well. My only gripe with the lipglosses is that they feel a bit sticky, but at least they don't dry out my lips. If you're interested in pretty, girly shades of sheer lipgloss in cutesy packaging, the Candy Wrap Lip is definitely worth a try! These will be launching in Singapore in November this year, and I'm sure they'll be popular - to me, the Candy Wrap Lip line is definitely one of the standouts of Canmake's offerings this year.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Orange Cheeks Summer Trend: Asian vs Western Brands

One of the hottest trends for this summer has been that of orange cheeks. In line with all the emphasis on contouring and bronzers we've seen this summer, orange is meant to give a sunkissed, warmed-up glow to the skin. No wonder every other brand has been releasing orange blushes, or if not, variations of the orange colour, like coral.

I thought some of you may be interested in seeing how the orange cheek colour trend is playing out in both Asian and Western brands, so here's a quick look at the colours that are on trend at the moment:



Clockwise, from top: Sleek Aruba Blush 890, Canmake Cream Cheek 12, Canmake Cheek and Cheek No 01, Canmake Powder Cheeks PW27

From Sleek Makeup, we have the epitome of the hot orange summer blush. This colour is pretty much bold, loud, and way out there! I've previously done a review and FOTD with Aruba Blusher, so if you're wondering how it looks on, feel free to click ahead :)



From the Asian brands, in this case Canmake, a Japanese drugstore brand that has been most aggressive in pursuing the orange cheeks trend, we have not one, but three products, with each of their blush lines receiving an orange-based colour.

The first two products are both powder products - the Canmake Powder Cheeks in PW27, which is a pale pastel orange-peach, and the Canmake Cheek&Cheek in 01, which has your usual pastel pink on one side, and a brighter (but not as bright as Sleek's Aruba blush) orange on the other side.



L-R: Canmake Powder Cheeks PW27, Canmake Cheek & Cheek 01

THe first thing you'll notice is that both these blushes have shimmer. The Cheek&Cheek version has more of it, but it's there too, in the Powder Cheeks shade as well. This is in contrast to the Sleek Aruba shade, which is matte. Shimmer in blushes sells in Asia - I don't know why, because I personally hate shimmer in my blushes.

The second thing you'll notice is that in comparison to Sleek's Aruba Blush, the Asian brands have in general shied away from really bringing out the brights. Instead, they have translated the orange trend into "milky orange", which is basically a lighter, pastel, peachy version of the true orange shade. I'm not surprised at all, since bright shades in general do not sell well in Asia, which is a pain for a huge makeup lover like me. It's hard to find a unique shade of deep purple-taupe when every darn Asian brand is selling the same shade of gritty, glittery, pastel pink eyeshadow! I mean, of course these brands need to cater to the market, but jeez, you'd think someone would try to put out colours that appealed to the non-pastel, non-glitter wearing rest-of-us in general!

Just to prove my point, here's a shot of Canmake's Powder Cheeks PW27 beside Sleek's Aruba. As you can see, Aruba really stands out beside PW27:



Anyway, the next shade that follows the "milky orange" trend is Canmake's Cream Cheek in shade 12 (I'm not sure what the English name is at the moment). I've swatched the Canmake Cream Cheek blushes before, and in fact, I think Canmake's Cream Cheek in Vitamin Orange 04 would probably fit the "orange cheeks" trend better than their own Milky Orange 12 shade, since Vitamin Orange is a bright orange. But other than the fact that one is cream, and one is a powder, I don't see much difference in shade between the Canmake Powder Cheeks PW27 and Canmake Cream Cheek 12. The photo below shows how similar they are:



So, which version of the orange cheeks trend do I like better? To be honest, the shades are so different, it's almost like comparing apples and oranges, isn't it? Both are great shades, and although I personally prefer Sleek's version of the bright orange vision better, for those who are more colour-shy, Canmake's milky orange is also a good way of wearing the orange cheeks trend. Which one do you prefer?

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Canmake Shimmer Jelly Eyes Cream Eyeshadow Swatches

Canmake, the Japanese drugstore cosmetics brand, typically produces ranges of products aimed squarely at the Asian market - with tons of shimmer, frost, and cutesy packaging, the brand does not deviate much from the typical formulas used to appeal to Asian consumers.

With Canmake's range of cream eyeshadows, the Shimmer Jelly Eyes Cream Eyeshadows, these are slightly different. The Shimmer Jelly Eyes, as the name suggests, are full of shimmer, but most colours don't have many visible specks of glitter, just frosty shimmer.

Image from http://bobodave.com

Here are swatches of the products. Look ma, almost no huge bits of glitter, just tiny ones! The frost is still there though, as is the somewhat weaker pigmentation I tend to find in Asian brands.



01 White Frosty is a sheer white frost
02 Sugar Milk Tea is a light tan brown, also frosty and sheer
03 Strawberry Parfaiit is a sheer, shimmery, pastel pink
04 Frozen Melon is blue-based pastel green. Doesn't look like the colour of a melon at all, but a very pretty aqua blue-green.
05 Caramel Chocolate was a rich, deep, chocolate brown. This is the least glittery of the lot.

My favourite out of the lot is 05 Caramel Chocolate, because it has the best pigmentation, and the least amount of grittery glitter. Most of the shades are sheer, and have tiny specks of glitter, especially the lighter colours. I really liked that the shadows started off with a fluid finish, but dried fast. After leaving them to set for 5 - 10 minutes, I found that the colours stayed on and did not remove easily. But if rubbed hard, these could be removed, so if you have a habit of rubbing your eyes, this isn't a great choice for you. However, if you don't rub your eyes, chances are this would last pretty decently on you.

Japan Cosmetics and Skincare Haul (and Other Funny Things)

A few weeks ago, I went to Hokkaido in Japan. I really enjoyed it, and I did all sorts of really awesome things - I went to a hot spring (you aren't allowed to wear clothes in there, so it takes some getting used to!), visited both the Ishiya Chocolate and the Asahi Beer factories (those were highlights for me, because in my day job I get to visit factories too), and just generally enjoyed the sights and sounds of gorged myself on the awesome Japanese food, especially the seafood and the dairy products. It was such an amazingly beautiful place with so much to do.

But of course you're not interested in that, right? So I'll show you what I hauled while I was in Japan. Now we're interested! :P

Firstly, I'm going to have to disappoint you by saying that my haul was rather small. In part, this was due to the fact that once the exchange rate was accounted for, prices were actually the same, although we were in Japan. Unlike US-based and Europe-based brands, which like to mark up their retail prices by at least 30% once they export out of their home market, Japanese cosmetic brands don't seem to have the same mindset. So yes, unfair as it may seem, while a NARS blush is nearly USD$50 in Japan and only USD$25 in America, the girl in Indiana pays the same for a Shu Uemura eyeshadow as the girl in Tokyo, unless you happen to buy from some unscrupulous third-party reseller who jacks up the retail price. So yes, that did dent my haul, but on the bright side, I can buy all the Japanese cosmetics I want back home knowing we're more or less paying the same prices worldwide.

So, that rant aside, let's start with the fun stuff of what I got: Shiseido Integrate nail polishes! For the unfamiliar, Integrate is one of Shiseido's subsidiary brands, calibrated for the drugstore market, along with a line of other brands, including Majolica Majorca, ZA Cosmetics, Maquillage, and Ettusais. Most of the colours were rather ho-hum, playing into the casual nail polish user's preference for sheer pinks and reds, but there were a couple of more interesting colours I spied. I got RD701, a dusky, dusty, greyed-purple with a pink flash, and GD841, an antique gold-green shade with a pink flash.



Don't they look gorgeous? I can't wait to use them!

I also got a Canmake Nail Glitter 02, one of their ranges of nail polish. Basically consisting of four colours, each colour is a different coloured glitter (pink, teal, silver, gold) in a clear base. I got the gold, as it looked more interesting.



And, this is the part of my haul I'm most excited about. I GOT A TAUPE EYESHADOW! Woohoo! Now for a taupe lover like myself, I compulsively collect and hoard taupe eyeshadow, so I was glad to lay my hands on this little baby. Go ahead, feast your eyes. You know you want to.



Okay, so it looks a little blah in the pan, and the photo isn't great because the plastic wrapping is still covering the entire case, but that's Coffret D'or, dude! Coffret D'or is one of the better makeup brands in Japan, with shades that are actually very smooth-textured and nicely pigmented. I don't know about you, but a lot of Asian-brand eyeshadows tend to be over-glittery, gritty, and have downright wimpy pigmentation (and I'm looking at almost all of them - most Canmake, some Majolica Majorca, some KATE, and the list goes on). So when I swatched this eyeshadow, I just HAD to have it.

It's Coffret D'or's Eye Color in GY-37. Taupe perfection, taupe goodness. A perfect light-to-midtone greyed-purpled-brown with some sparkles, but not too much. This is like my baby right now. I just love it so much, I can't bear to use it.

Other than makep, I got some skincare items. I got my DHC Cleansing Oil, which I find so much better than the Shu Uemura Cleansing Oil, as it lathers more easily and rinses off so much cleaner, whereas the Shu Uemura version leaves a residue that makes me perpetually paranoid that the mineral oil in its formulation will break my skin out. Oh yeah, and did I also mention that the DHC Cleansing Oil also has no mineral oil? Perfect for people who are sensitive to mineral oil, like me.



Of course, the drawback is that the DHC Cleansing Oil looks rather gross in it's packaging. It looks like the olive oil I used to use for cooking when I was living in the West (olive oil is cheaper there than in Asia, believe it or not), and that's because it is primarily made of olive oil. Olive oil, and a bunch of emulsifiers, so it rinses off better than pure olive oil. I rather like this. I need to review it sometime.

Lastly, I got some DHC Pimple/Acne Spot Therapy Cream. Now, I have something I want to say to DHC about the packaging of the product: Why is it that the consumers in Japan get the cutesy packaging, while the rest of us get a boring baby blue box? No fair!



The box above is what I bought in Singapore - which is a rather medical, serious and stuffy-looking blue box. The box below, the kawaii one with spots and a drawing of the product working on the pimple, is what you can get in Japan. The product inside is the same though.

The discrimination even extends to the tubes themselves. Why does the Japanese version look so much cuter? Both contain 15ml of product, however, so you get the same product in the same amount, but...I want mine to look cute too!



Anyway, I'm guessing the change in packaging is probably to cater to the market, since it costs the company money to have more than one design for the packaging and boxes and so on. The marketing honchos must have figured out that while cute and kawaii things sell within Japan, for a pimple cream that will be sold outside of Japan, it would probably be better for it to look more professional and medicinal, and more like something the doctor would prescribe. I guess it's working - this product seems to be selling well.

And of course, what kind of tourist would I be if I didn't marvel at the funny Engrish there? To be fair, I do think that since the last time I visited Japan 8 years ago, the English competency has definitely improved. But I still see Engrish gems all over the place. Here's a makeup-related one for you:



I'm sorry, but this ad is just hilarious. It's for a foundation product released by Maquillage, one of Shiseido's subsidiaries, that promises clean, smooth skin. So I guess that automatically allows you to proclaim, "I'M VIRGIN!" Woohoo! Somehow, I can't imagine this selling in the West. Ever. In the rest of Asia, probably (provided it's better translated than "I'm virgin" - I believe the actual message they wanted to convey was virgin-clear skin, or virgin-clean skin, etc). But not in the West. That would seem positively medieval.

Anyway, another thing I found funny were the instructions showing you how to use squat toilet. That's right - toilets which are a glorified and beautified hole in the ground, and you basically squat over them to use them. I don't believe these exist in the West (come to think of it, in my 4 years living abroad in the US and UK I've only ever seen sitting toilets), but they're commonplace in Asia. So I found it funny that the Japanese people have helpfully provided instructions on how to use the toilets for uninitiated, clueless Westerners, complete with diagrams! I never saw any such diagrams when I visited other parts of Asia - I guess they expect you to figure out how to use it yourself, or else handle your bladder well.

Here's a typical diagram you might find. I think they claim too much credit in calling these "Japanese style toilets", since they're found all over Asia, certainly not just Japan. I'd call them "Asian style toilets", but hey, I don't write instructions for toilet usage:



And this, hands-down, has got to be the BEST "how-to-use-our-toilets-for-clueless-tourists" manual ever. It's got painfully detailed step-by-step diagrams, and classic Engrish lines such as "Do it" and "If you lose your balance, you are gonna fall down on shit". ROFL! They even have instructions in Mandarin, although I don't know why they need those - the rest of Asia is familiar with these toilets.



So now that I've wowed you with the awesome makeup I bought, laughed with you at the funny Engrish, and grossed you out with toilet signs, I hope you've enjoyed this post. While I know I can sound mean laughing at stupid things like Engrish and toilets, let me assure you that I have nothing but utmost love for Japan and its people. I'll be posting as I use some of the items, but until then, I am glad that my visit to Hokkaido has left me with beautiful memories, and gorgeous makeup and skicnare items.

Canmake Jewelstar Eyes Shimmery Cream Eyeshadow Swatches

Canmake is a drugstore brand of makeup hailing from Japan, the land of kawaii, anime, and unfortunately more recently, tragedy. The brand is known for its cutsey, girly packaging of products, and general glitter abundance in their products. Yup, glitter abundance. So if you love glitter, you'll love this brand. If you don't, this brand probably won't have too many items that would float your boat.

Proving my point very neatly are the Jewelstar Eyes Shimmery Cream Eyeshadow. These cream eyeshadows come in cute little compacts, which looks nice, but makes me worry a little bit about the product drying out in the packaging.

(Image from http://www.myphamjp.com)

I guess Canmmake figured that for the Jewelstar range, the "jewel" and "star" effect could be acheive by stuffing the shadows with glitter. Big, big bits of chunky, discrete glitter. The glitter colour varies with the individual shadow colour, but typical glitters would be gold or silver. Some of the shades have pink glitter.

In addition to being glitter-filled, these shadows are sheer. I had to dig out a lot of product to build up the colour. So yes, they are sheer, and glittery, and if you used them layered thinly as normal cream shadows, you'd probably have a bunch of coloured glitter and not much actual pigmentation.

Here are swatches of the entire range. You'd better appreciate them, because I was walking around with a glittery arm afterwards. I just couldn't get the glitter off!



01 Crystal Silver is a sheer, white-silver-ish base with big bits of silver glitter.

02 Zircon Blue is a sheer sky blue, with blue and silver glitter.

03 Lime Green is a pale, pastel green that is hardly lime at all. Also sheer, and laden with silver glitter.

04 Chandelier Pink is a sheer, pastel baby pink. Has silver glitter, and I think some pink glitter too.

05 Mirror Purple would be the kind of colour I'd wear, if I liked sheer, glittery shadows. (Regular readers would probably know this isn't my cup of tea.) Pastel, cool-toned purple, with lots of silver and pink-ish glitter.

06 Pearl Brown is a medium warm brown. Canmake describes it as a "deep brown", but to me it's more medium than deep. Has gold shimmer. This one actually had better pigmentation than the rest of the colours, and could be built up, although it's still on the sheer side.

07 Stone Gold is a pale, sheer, shimmery champagne. I detect gold and silver glitter in this one.

08 Illumination Nude should be called Illumination Pink, in my opinion. I hardly think that glitter-laden pink colour is a nude on anyone's skintone. It's a sheer peachy-pink shade, kind of like NARS Orgasm, but in sheer, cream eyeshadow form. With tons of gold and silver glitter.

One last thing about the Jewelstar Eyes shadows is that they have this weird, slippery, slide-y, silicone-y feel that usually comes about when a product is formulated with lots of silicones. It makes me feel like they skimped out on pigment and topped up the product with silicones instead, but at least it spreads nicely on the skin. And this type of sheer, glittery, silicone-y formulation seems popular in the Asian market for some reason, even though it's not to my personal taste.

So, would I recommend these? Personally, I'm not convinced, because the glitter in them is too OTT, the pigmentation too sheer, and because I don't like the silicone-y feel in my cream products. And, the compact packaging makes me worry about my shadows drying out too fast. But if you're looking for sheer shimmery cream shadows with kawaii packaging, if you don't mind glitter, or if you're really into Asian makeup, this is worth looking into.

Canmake Cream Cheek Gel Blush Swatches!

Today I bring you yet another Asian brand - Canmake! I'm afraid I don't know very much about them, other than the fact that they're a Japan-based drugstore cosmetics line, and they're available in drugstores in some Asian countries. They have the cutest packaging that just makes you want to buy them!

Anyway, Canmake has just released a new line of cream blushes, called Cream Cheek. However, the selling point of these blushes is that it has a gel-type texture that dries to a powder instantly. While swatching these, I found the claims to be true, sort of. For one, I'm not sure if these are gel or cream. To me, cream means opaque, gel means transluscent or transparent (you know, like TheBalm Stainaic products, which were swatched in this post). So this opaque cream was a cream, and I'm not sure how it feels like a gel. I guess it's a light cream, and it definitely felt less heavy that the western type of cream blushes (like Bobbi Brown and Stila), but I'm not sure about the gel texture claim. And as for drying to a powder, well they sort of did that too. They didn't dry to a powder totally, but they did dry up on your skin to a half-powder-half-cream finish. Not too bad, I suppose. They don't dry up that fast, so you should have enough time to work the blushes.

The gel-textured Cream Cheek range (haha, I just had to do that, sorry) come in six shades, some of which are prettier than others. I think the colour range is eh-okay, but there are some standouts. One thing to note though, is that all the colours are quite sparkly and glittery, so this is definitely NOT for those who dislike sparkly blushes. Don't say I didn't tell you! :P

I'm sure you've had enough about me yabbering by now. So, without further ado, here we are: swatches! Thanks goes to my sister, who's knowledge of Katakana helped me to translate all the Japanese names! :D



L - R: Peach Dream, Cherry Pink, Strawberry Whip, Vitamin Orange, Sweet Apricot, Nut Cream

Peach Dream is a pretty, neutral light peach with a good dose of pink.
Cherry Pink is a bright cool-toned light magenta pink.
Strawberry Whip looks similar to Peach Dream, but it's not similar (stupid camera). It's most definitely pink. It's kinda barbie pink actually. Light pale pastel pink.
The oddly named Vitamin Orange is, well, orange. Bright orangey orange.
Sweet Apricot is a peachy pink colour, sort of like NARS Orgasm, but lighter, and with no gold shimmer (although it does have sparkles).
Nut Cream (haha, oh my, think of all the jokes I could put in here) is brown, and I'm not sure why Canmake would release such a colour in the Asian market, because it's not a very common colour among Asian brand blushes. It's also got a orange base, so for people who don't like orange-based browns, you might not like it.